


Sink Their Talons In

by extravirginwriting



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: But it gets better!, Heavy Angst, SO MUCH ANGST!, Talon Fareeha Amari, kind of! maybe! lets see!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9178336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extravirginwriting/pseuds/extravirginwriting
Summary: Fareeha is captured by Talon and infected with a god program, governing the nanobots injected into her body. Overwatch reclaims her, but struggles to truly do so.





	1. Feelings and A Lack Thereof

**Author's Note:**

> HI I LOVE FAREEHA "PHARAH" AMARI WITH MY HEART AND SOUL
> 
> PLEASE COMMENT  
> COMMENTS > KUDOS  
> ALSO PLEASE KUDOS I LOVE YOU ALL <3
> 
> I DONT ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND 90% OF OVERWATCH'S LORE SO I JUST TURNED ANUBIS INTO A TALON PROGRAM BECAUSE HAHA WHY N O T
> 
> I AM SO DEARLY SORRY IF THIS CHAPTER SEEMS RUSHED, IT'LL GET BETTER, TRUST ME

Rarely, did Fareeha feel so doomed about a mission.

Winston had said it would be easy, an in-and-out data extraction mission. The mission’s location out in the desert isolated them from attack, and he’d promised that their squad was built up well enough to keep them from being vulnerable in the off-chance of opposition. Still, Fareeha had felt unsure about it all day.

Maybe she feels that calling it easy was jinxing the whole thing, or maybe it just seems too perfect. It was all a melting pot of disaster, in Fareeha’s opinion. Zarya had told her to relax in the transport, but that did nothing.

“Pharah, we have you on aerial surveillance.” Winston says, “Usually, we’d try and give you some backup, but I think we’ll be okay. Is that alright with you? Otherwise, we can put someone in your vicinity.”

Shifting awkwardly, Fareeha feels as though the eyes of Overwatch are all upon her. The only one to protest this mission, of course she’d be the only one without any backup. And of course- Winston would ask if she was alright with that, which she most certainly isn’t.

“I’ll be fine. This is my duty.” Fareeha responds, flicking her visor into place.

 

They had, of course, been spotted by a group that had been attempting to preform the same extraction for months- Talon. Fareeha brings the butt of her rocket launcher against her shoulder, aiming with less than her usual care. Rocket fire naturally brings more attention to her, but unloading ammunition gave Fareeha better agility, and the Raptora caught plenty of the bullets in it’s thick armoring.

Unfortunately, the Raptora jets are a bit weaker than the chest plate or any of the other coverings. And unfortunately, when one jet is gone, the other cuts out from pure shock to the system. It leaves Fareeha plummeting to the Earth at a rapid pace, screaming into her comm with unmistakable desperation.

Again, unfortunately, it takes less time to crash into the nearest roof than it does for her teammates to respond. Lying broken and bruised amongst the rubble of a flat-topped house, Fareeha hears vague chatter in her earpiece, asking her coordinates, if she was okay, what had happened.

_“Fareeha? Are you in need of medical attention?”_ Mercy asks, _“We’ve got some serious injuries over here, if you’re not, you have to tell me. I can’t waste time.”_

Fareeha almost wants to laugh, if her ribcage isn’t hurting so badly. Her head is swimming, and just thinking of the process of getting her coordinates from the Raptora’s system is an impossible task. All she can manage is a weak, halfway audible groan, feeling like just that has drained her. 

She hears voices from down below, unfamiliar, against Mei’s chattering in her earpiece. They’d probably seen her fall and came to ensure that she was dead. If Fareeha could’ve run, she would’ve.

Wiggling her fingers, Fareeha wonders if she could grab her rocket launcher and fire a warning shot. If they take the shot as a challenge, and come to confront her, she would be doomed. And if she shows she still has firepower, her team would have less of an inclination to rescue her.

_“Fareeha, is your comm down?”_ Mei asks, _“Angela’s on standby, but we have to get confirmation!”_

Even saying “help” is daunting, and with hostile forces nearby, speaking could easily be a death sentence. There’s footsteps under the roof, and Fareeha feels her heart race.

_“Really, Fareeha, if you’re upset about last week, then I’m sorry. I didn’t_ mean _to ignore you, I just had my comm off temporarily.”_ Angela sniffs, and Fareeha knows she’s trying to just get her to talk, they were both over last week. _“Do you need medical attention? Yes or no?”_

The first thing Fareeha sees is a tell-tale Talon helmet, climbing onto the roof. She wants nothing more than to tell Angela she needs _emergency_ assistance, but she decides that playing dead is a better option.

_“If you’re really going to do this, then I’m going to need to leave you. Winston, can you check Fareeha’s vitals via Raptora? I don’t have the time.”_ Angela snaps.

Both of the Talon agents circle Fareeha for a moment, then pause at her sides. One swiftly kicks her in the side, and she comes right back to the world of the living, her scream less of a scream and more of a tangled, ripped from her throat moan. 

“Yeah, she’s definitely done for. I’ll call in, then?” One asks.

“Go ahead. I’ll stand guard.” The other replies.

_“Fareeha, what’s going on?”_ Angela demands, her voice now frayed and riddled with anxiety.

Winston chimes in, probably from another side of the field, _“The Raptora is reporting damage. I think Fareeha may have been unconscious.”_

Unconsciousness would’ve been a dream. The Talon grunt watching her gives a smile that makes Fareeha feel sick, but she simply flicks her eyes the other direction, focusing on the shattered remains of her visor nearby. She hadn’t even noticed it was broken, her mind’s been a thousand other places than with her.

As the other grunt returns, the one standing watch raises his gun. It looks heavy in his hands, just like everything Talon designs. They go for firepower, and it shows. He flips it the other way and holds the butt where her helmet meets her forehead.

_“Just hang on Fareeha, I’m coming right in your direction, Winston’s supplied me with coordinates. Can you hold on for a minute more?”_ Angela asks. The answer a very simple no, that is never produced.

“Go ahead. We’ve got extraction coming.”

The grunt smiles again, and Fareeha shuts her eyes, wanting to meet the darkness on her own terms.

 

When Fareeha comes to, she’s in a room that’s lit with so many fluorescents it might just be a fire hazard. The walls are a sterile white, clinical as the table she’s on, made of stainless steel with matching restraints. Beside her is a tray of medical equipment, including scalpels and packets of pre-sterilized cannulas and needles.

It’s a bit of a shock that Talon is so clean and sterile. She half expected a dungeon of medieval torture devices, but this is a bit of a pleasant surprise. If Talon has plans to alter her, then she’ll be better off if they do it with some bit of cleanliness.

Acceptance is all Fareeha feels. As cynical as it is, Overwatch isn’t terribly good at getting back their agents Talon steals. She feels their poor rescue attempts might be half of Overwatch’s demise, and half the reason they’ve barely got any agents now. Talon has always been Overwatch’s greatest adversary, and she doesn’t see anything changing now.

Fareeha would like to put up a fight, really, she would, but she’s barely got the care to breathe. An older looking man in a lab coat comes in, but Fareeha doesn’t pay him too much attention, he’s not worth it to her.

“How are you doing?” He asks her.

No answer.

“Oh, I see. Anubis is working well, then.”

No answer.

“Perfect. Are you hungry?”

No answer.

“Excellent! You’re coming right along.”

He busies himself with unwrapping some pre-wrapped tubing, preparing one end with a needle, and screwing the other into a small tube. Fareeha watches out of the corner of her eye, but feels apathetic towards it all. She doesn’t care much for needles, but this one isn’t _so_ big. It’s barely bothering her.

Maybe that’s cause for concern. But still, Fareeha remains neutral. The man comes over to her, and carefully slips the tube into the underside of her forearm.

It hurts, and it hurts _a lot_ , but Fareeha doesn’t feel any compulsion to cry out. She twitches, only slightly, and lets the tube go in. The needle is considerably bigger than she had realized, but her heart doesn’t race, it stays slow and steady, slowing down more as the tube stays in.

If they’re poisoning her, they’re doing it very nicely, Fareeha thinks. She’s at peace with all of it, but not even at peace. Mentally, she’s simply elsewhere, and elsewhere she’d like to stay.

 

Anubis takes total hold of her two days into the reconditioning- or as Overwatch would call it, brainwashing. The word makes Fareeha’s skin crawl, how _dare_ they. Talon is making her a better soldier, a better civilian, they’re making the world better.

She doesn’t eat much else than the nutrition packets she’s provided. The nanobots coursing through her system- the product of a culture stolen from Reaper- make her feel in tip-top shape all the time. Her body doesn’t need to sleep, she simply indulges in it if she’s done particularly well in her practices. She doesn’t need food, it just gives the nanobots less of a chore.

Food loses appeal four days in, and the nutrition packets are abandoned in her cubicle’s wastebasket. It’s a cubicle, not a bunk and certainly not a bedroom. She has a cot, a dresser filled with Talon-issued clothing, and a locked safe filled with her future missions. Her doctor says they’ll put her- Anubis- into the field.

Pharah is dead and Anubis is rising in her place, the Raptora modified beautifully to match her new self. But now, Fareeha feels no bond with the Raptora. It’s a hunk of metal, and that’s all it’ll be. Her bonds now are with herself, with the god program controlling the nanobots running through her body, and with Talon.

 

Overwatch really _is_ a pain, Fareeha discovers. Blankly, she aims another shot at the one blinking about the field- the one Widowmaker has taken so kindly to. Somebody calls out to her, but she turns her aim in their direction, pulls the trigger, and continues on.

Reaper gets what he wants, Sombra brags about how it was _her_ doing that got them into the control tower in the first place, and Widowmaker demands they both shut up. Fareeha feels nothing, and she isn’t sure if she wants to.

Even Widowmaker, with her same unfeeling, is not designed how Anubis is. She’s not enabled with nanobots and god programs, she’s just a woman pumped full of cold and hatred. Breaking through Anubis’ hard shell, an inkling of jealousy rises to the surface.

Fareeha wants to be upset, she wants to be angry. She wants to feel the emotion that comes with saying ‘shut up.’ But she’s too indifferent to care that much. Anubis makes her a blank slate, with nothing projecting onto her. Just oblivion in her thoughts, actions, and self.

 

Sombra realizes something’s up. They’re holed up in a safe house together, Sombra toying with some of the threads on the ratty looking couch. Fareeha has her eyes trained on the street below them, looking out for potential enemies.

“You’re really obsessive, aren’t you?” Sombra asks, unwrapping a piece of gum from her pocket.

“I am merely doing my job. Unlike some of us.” Fareeha says, not even pulling her gaze away from the window to see how Sombra reacts. It’s the first cutting remark she’s made in a month. She wants to feel proud, but Anubis suppresses it.

“Low blow.” Sombra teases, “Want some gum?”

“For what?”

“For chewing? Enjoying? Blowing bubbles with?”

“There’s no need.”

It’s quiet between them for a few moments, until Sombra starts chewing her gum. Anubis insists that there’s nothing to be annoyed with in Sombra chewing and popping and chewing again and popping again, but there _is_ something. Fareeha just can’t pin-point it.

“You’re twitching.” Sombra interjects Fareeha’s thoughts, popping her gum again.

“I’m not.”

“Are your nanobots malfunctioning?”

Fareeha hopes not. If they go, she goes. And she’s not ready to go. She needs Anubis, because after just a month with it, she can’t go without it. Anubis controls her and sets her boundaries, it dictates who she is and what she will become, it gives her a purpose.

A purpose she should feel entirely indifferent towards, but a purpose nonetheless.

“No.” Fareeha responds.

“Are you homesick?” Sombra jokes, dragging out the ‘o.’

Homesickness is a bizarre concept, but Fareeha feels a touch of it. It’s just barely there, that awful feeling of wanting and needing. She gasps, trying to rid herself of it, but it won’t go, and Sombra is here, watching.

If she’s not careful, Sombra can report her to the doctors, who’ll ramp up Anubis’ hold on her, and that’s going to be too much for her.

“What’s going on with you?”

She doesn’t want to answer, because Anubis is telling her not to. Her brain is ready, it has a response, it’s raring to go, but Anubis tells her to be quiet, to shut up, to just leave it behind and embrace what Talon has. But Fareeha wants to say it, but Anubis wants her to be quiet.

And Fareeha is writhing on the floor, battling Anubis, the nanobots in her body furious with what’s come of all this. They scream with Anubis, then cry out with Fareeha, and it’s all in disorder, off-kilter and upsetting.

Sombra is over her, trying to tell her to calm down, but Anubis has no sense of the word calm, and Fareeha can’t find her definition. Everything is out of place, nothing is right, and everything hurts. Her body is aching, and the nanobots are protesting fixing the hurt. Anubis is scolding her, clearly, for being disorderly, but why does it have to hurt so badly?

“What’s going on with you?” Sombra repeats, smacking Fareeha’s cheek lightly.

“Anubis.”

 

Fareeha gets shot from the sky. It’s a bullet right beneath her diaphragm, that only just goes into her skin, but Anubis doesn’t anticipate it, and it fails her for just a moment. In that moment, Fareeha feels like a human again. She falls from the sky, unsure of what to do to regain her control, and experiences the wholehearted panic she had experienced her first day with Talon.

Then, she hits a flat-topped roof and feels the soreness. It’s relieving, until Anubis comes back and her grimace hardens into the same blank expression she wears all day. Her cheeks hurt, but the nanobots rush to them. While the nanobots work, Fareeha begins to stand. She’s wobbly, and the Raptora is shouting in her ear, because it _has_ to alert Fareeha that there’s damage to her armor.

Anubis has her shut it off, it’s unnecessary noise in the background. Shutting the warning off means powering down the other functions of the suit. Her communication line is dead, her suit is for all intents and purposes, offline.

Before shooting back up into the sky, Fareeha takes inventory of her damage. The nanobots are hard at work making her legs a little less broken, and they diligently aim to destroy the fractures in her ribs. Still, despite their efforts, she’s in no condition to fly so fast.

Out in the open like this, she’s a sitting duck, vulnerable to whatever Overwatch has.

“I’ve got position on her!” Somebody shouts from below. It isn’t a familiar voice, but the whole situation is all too acquainted with her. 

Fareeha feels the need to get into the sky. Her bones protest, but she goes. She hovers weakly one the roof she’s fallen into, and scopes out the area. The nanobots haven’t reached her head yet, the onset of a concussion is throbbing in her brain, and everything is a bit less clear. Shapes aren’t quite there yet, and Fareeha is trying to distinguish if the horizon is really there or not.

Anubis is yelling at her to push on, but there’s a twinge in Fareeha’s neck and she’s suddenly overcome with the heaviest feeling yet- exhaustion. It’s slow and painful, carrying her across the sky drunkenly. With it, Anubis begins to fall asleep with Fareeha, the two of them careening back to Earth together, in a final partnership.


	2. What's the Use?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Overwatch begins to take back Fareeha.
> 
> \-- 
> 
> please comment!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENTS > KUDOS <3
> 
> sawyer has soon-ish updates?? UNHEARD OF!
> 
> new chapter new chapter its fun its fun also ana and fareeha are going to have more of a relationship developed between them in the NEXT chapter, i just wanted this to focus on anubis, the nanobots, and fareeha being fareeha
> 
> also NO this isnt pharmercy!! sorry : ( just don't want to mislead. i know which ship it'll be, but i'd rather not spoil!! ; )

The room is equally as sterile, but ten times more terrifying. Her restraints hurt just the same, but it’s somehow worse. The nanobots are still working, she can tell, because nothing hurts too badly, but Anubis is still sleeping, leaving her mind chaotic and cluttered, rather than it’s usual clean slate.

An electric door whooshes open, and Fareeha determinedly turns her head to see. Barely inside the doorway, there’s Angela, staring at her with longing eagle eyes. Fareeha wants to call out to her, but Anubis is now stirring and clouding her brain.

“How are you feeling?” Angela asks, coming to Fareeha’s bedside with a sympathetic half-smile.

No response surfaces, and Angela nods silently. She turns to a tray of medical tools beside Fareeha. “Your mother’s waiting outside for you. She came back to us right after you were taken. She’s been trying to help us find you.” Angela says, “I can bring her in if you want.”

Fareeha wants to say yes, but Anubis keeps saying no, and she’s trying to regain the little control she has in the moments that Anubis is still hazy. She nods slowly, trying to express what Anubis is attempting to suppress.

“I’ll go ahead and tell her.” Angela says, crossing over to the door, hitting a button so it slides open. She pokes her head out for a few moments, and returns with a now grey-haired Ana. It’s a bit of a shock for Fareeha, but Anubis is now taking control, and there’s nothing she feels towards her, apart from a quiet, Talon-bred loathing.

“You’ve got a lot of nanobots in your system, just from the preliminary tests I’ve conducted.” Angela offers another smile oozing with sympathy as she returns to the medical supplies, preparing a needle to go onto the end of a tube. “We’re going to have to manually extract them, utilizing a god program.”

They haven’t found Anubis, which to Fareeha, is a relief. She’ll miss the nanobots, but if Anubis can keep her in line until she reaches Talon once again, then it’ll all be fine. Angela attaches the other end of the tube to a black control box, resting it on the table as she angles the needle, thicker than Talon’s, into Fareeha’s vein.

It doesn’t sting, the nanobots are busying themselves so nicely.

“I’m going to tell you, Fareeha, this won’t feel very good. The nanobots will be essentially stripping themselves from your body, and any injuries you sustained in the last battle won’t be healing with the nanobots gone.” Angela says, taping down the tubing, “You’ll feel like you’re in the worst of it a few hours in, and it’ll get worse from there. Take the breaks your body gives you, and just try to ride it out the best you can. It shouldn’t last more than a day or two.”

 

Angela’s right, and Fareeha hates that. It had all been fine, Fareeha lying with Ana silently supervising. Then, the nanobots had started to occupy the tube, and Fareeha squirmed. As they flooded out of her body, Fareeha began to really feel it. They’re vacating her so quickly, and it left her feeling crumpled up like a piece of paper.

Writhing on the table, Fareeha wiggles her hand, trying to seek out Ana’s. And Ana is there, her palm meeting Fareeha’s quickly, in a strong squeeze. Fareeha throws her head back against the metal, her body revolting against her as Angela slides the tube out. Anubis is overridden by the pain, there’s nothing to control, it’s like a wild animal.

“And round one is wrapped up. I’ll try and let you get a bit of rest before we go again, alright?” She says, voice sickeningly sweet as if she isn’t preparing Fareeha for her demise.

 

Fareeha gets moved to a real bed after the second round. She’s too weak to run, and Angela’s got guards on the door now, so it isn’t as though there’ll be any grand prison break. Ana has moved up onto the bed, cradling her daughter like a baby in her arms. Fareeha can’t stop crying, and nothing is subsiding like Angela promises it will.

“You’re probably not up for it, but I’ve got dinner.” Angela offers, holding a tray to Fareeha.

She doesn’t even want to look at it. Her stomach has been furious for a while now, desperate for some form of susitenaence after being starved by Talon for so long. There’s water on the tray too, and though Fareeha’s throat is crying out, but so is Fareeha herself.

She turns away, wrapping an arm around Ana to stabilize herself as the nanobots pull from her veins to move towards the new god program across the tube. Ana puts a hand on the back of Fareeha’s head, stroking gently and whispering that it’ll all be okay soon. Fareeha feels more doubt than ever, and buries her head in Ana’s chest, screeching and crying.

 

It’s a three man job at this point. The nanobots are out and Fareeha’s body is suffering. Everything from the last mission burns, and she wants to eat, drink, and sleep, but Anubis is apprehensive. Ana has to hold her upright while Angela tries to get her to have a few sips of soup. Anubis forces her to resist, even though Fareeha’s stomach is begging for something to eat.

Angela tries to force water down, but she spits it out right back in Angela’s face, earning her a scolding from Ana, but it’s in one ear and out the other. She’s just listening to Anubis now, demanding that she fight them, prove that she’s not even useful to Overwatch, that this isn’t a fight that’s worth going through. 

If Talon can’t have her, than nobody can.

 

They tie Fareeha to the bed, and Ana can’t hold her anymore. Angela is dutifully wrapping up her leg, applying careful ice packs to her ribcage while the cast sets. She provides advice on when to remove them, when to place them back on, but Fareeha’s not listening. Ana is, but that’s a rare occasion.

Fareeha feels tired, but Anubis keeps her eyes open. Everything stings, and she’s actually fairly hungry, even with the tube running into her nose. But Anubis says no, and Fareeha obeys the command.

She lies there, staring at the wall blankly while Ana rubs the top of her hand gently. Ana’s barely said a thing this whole time, but she’s still sitting there, her head resting against the rail of the bed, not even looking at Fareeha now.

Angela comes by, throwing an itchy-looking blanket over Ana’s shoulders, rousing her with sleep still in her eyes.

“It’s getting late, you both should try and rest. I’ll make you a cot if you want, Ana?” Angela asks, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Fareeha’s arm.

“I can go back to my bunk. Fareeha should have some time to herself to process.” Ana says, yawning.

The pains come in small bursts now. Anubis is managing her responses, but it still hurts, regardless of what Anubis is doing. Fareeha tries to close her eyes, she’d rather sleep than process, but Anubis snaps them right back open. Silently, Fareeha wars with the god program, until she realizes there’s no winning. She must utilize every moment she has to plan her escape and reunion with Talon.

 

Anubis has become obsessed with their efforts to return by the time Angela comes by with a morning meal, leaving no time for even a mental break. It’s toast, bathed in butter and jam. Fareeha wants to grab the tray, but Anubis forces restraint. There’s so much discipline in how she holds her hands to the rails, even though she’s shaking as badly as a seismic plate.

“Fareeha, you look exhausted. Did you sleep at all last night? If it was pain, I could’ve given you something…” Angela places a gentle hand on Fareeha’s bicep, and she tenses. Her body’s been warming slowly, but Angela is hot.

“I’m not tired.” Fareeha says, trying to pull away to the best of her ability. “I feel fine.”

Angela frowns, but sets the tray down at her bedside and busies herself with rewrapping Fareeha’s palms, bloodied and scraped up. “We’ll be doing a mental assessment later today, you really should be properly rested for that. And eat something too, your brain can really be deprive when you don’t eat.”

The mention of a mental assessment makes Anubis squirm. It malfunctions for a moment, and Fareeha wishes Angela’s hands weren’t occupied so she could give her even a bite of toast. Anubis snaps back into action, and formulates a careful plan to work the system in their favor. To score high is to earn Overwatch’s trust, and that’ll get Fareeha flying in no time. Flying right back to Talon, back to her nanobots and nutrition packets, and the occasional nutrition bar…

“Angela,” Fareeha says, fighting Anubis with all the strength she has, “I’ll have some toast. Just a little bit.”


	3. What A Shocker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fareeha fights Anubis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAD REINHARDT IS MY FUCKING LIFE LET ME HAVE THE ANA/REINHARDT/FAREEHA/JESSE FAMILY.
> 
> PLEASE COMMENT! i really don't feel inspired to do more chapters unless i see comments on my work. : (
> 
> also i'm not reaaaally a fan of how i wrote this chapter? so please lmk if you like it or not ^

Anubis keeps her awake for a day before Angela sedates her. Fareeha won’t go down right away, she kicks and scratches and Reinhardt has to come in to help restrain her.

The way he stares at her infuriates Anubis. He looks like he’s going to cry, and that makes Fareeha’s stomach absolutely churn, and Anubis _hates_ that. Anubis hates it when there’s a rise of emotion within her, and it squashes those feelings immediately, forcing Fareeha to spit in Reinhardt’s face. It makes him look even more upset, but he ties her down and wipes his face off with a paper towel supplied by Angela.

“She was better yesterday.” Angela says, sighing, “It might just be trauma, but I’m worried. If it’s something more? What can we do for her, then?”

“We’ll find something.” Reinhardt replies, staring at Fareeha. She glares back, challenging, but it isn’t Fareeha, it’s Anubis.

If she could, Fareeha would ask for him back. She would climb up into his arms and rest her head against his chest, just like she did as a little child every time she got sick, or if Ana was late coming home from a mission.

There’s hope in his eyes, hope that Anubis refuses to feel, and that’s what burns Fareeha. She wants to give him something to have hope in, but as long as Anubis is there, nagging in her ear, then there’s nothing left but a shell of what was his “prinzessin.” Fareeha wants him to sit with Ana by her bedside, coaxing laughter out of her cracked ribs just like they did before Talon stole her away from her broken-down, makeshift little family. She wants Jesse to march through the doors and tease her about the cast on her foot, but he hasn’t even passed along a message to Angela yet.

Something toils inside Fareeha, but Anubis orders it suppressed, and so it is. Fareeha lies there, her eyelids drooping, eyes unfocusing on Reinhardt. He’s smiling now, and Fareeha frowns extra hard just to prove how little she cares that he’s smiling- Anubis is tired, but it still wants to make a statement.

“Just like when she was a little one.” Reinhardt muses, making his way to the end of the bed. Gently, he pats her unbandaged foot, just like he always did when she squirmed at the dentist, it always calmed her down, just to know that he was there. It takes her back; Ana asking him with puppy dog eyes to take her to the dentist because Ana _hated_ the whining of the drill, and he agrees to take her, buying her an ice cream afterwards to cool the pain of her fillings, which Ana is most certainly not happy about.

Reinhardt takes a seat beside her, and Fareeha’s head lolls to face him. He’s smiling, mournfully, and he reaches out to pet her hair. Anubis demands a reaction, but Fareeha’s body feels so heavy that she submits, and lets him call her “schnecke.” Angela had told her a long time ago what that meant, but the memory doesn’t exist in Anubis’ new version of Fareeha’s mind.

“You’ll be fine, _mausi_.” He promises, his palm resting on top of her head, “I know you aren’t worried, but I am. Just a little. And then I remember that you’re the strongest one on this whole team, and then I know we’ll all be fine.”

Fareeha pushes past Anubis and her exhaustion and her probably fractured jaw and smiles at that. She used to hate that word, “fine,” and part of her still does. She wants to be more than just fine, she wants to be back to supreme.

Anubis keeps her on a tight leash. Anubis keeps her from enjoying anything, not her favorite action movies, not her workout time, not her favorite shaved ice stand. There’s nothing that Fareeha enjoys anymore, and there’s nothing to reclaim. She can’t enjoy her shaved ice in privacy and peace, because Anubis is there, watching and waiting for her to slip.

With that kind of a reign, Fareeha thinks she’ll be okay with fine, if fine means that she can enjoy twenty reps without Anubis barking in her ear.

 

Fareeha wakes up alone. Angela’s left her with a new bag of mush hooked up to the tube fed up her nose and a brand new IV in her arm. The moment she regains consciousness, Anubis orders her to yank out the tube and IV, but Fareeha’s arms are still bound to the rails of the bed, so she lies there, feeling more useless than before.

Talon has trained her to enjoy boredom. To Fareeha, there’s no issue in lying in bed alone with a needle in her arm. She’s handled much worse.

So, she lies there, stares at the ceilings, and lets Anubis take over. Anubis begins plotting escape routes, citing prior knowledge of Overwatch’s blueprints, and Fareeha’s organic brain can’t follow it all. Fareeha doesn’t know how long she’s slept, but it wasn’t enough, she’s too tired to process ventilation pathways. But Anubis isn’t happy with that answer.

It shocks her, and not lightly either. Fareeha cries out, trying to pull against the restraints to reach the call button. She wants Angela to know _immediately_ that she needs Anubis out of her head, because now it’s hurting her, and Anubis has never done this before.

Anubis delivers another shock and Fareeha screeches louder. She feels as though she’s shouting into a vacuum, the doors staying shut, everybody probably off having fun without any thought towards the prisoner to herself in the medbay.

What feels like hours, but is actually more like a minute, pass full of shocks and tears and screams before Ana comes sprinting in, Angela and Reinhardt close behind. Their family reunion is cut short by a final warning shock from Anubis, making it clear to Fareeha that if she tattles, there’s certainly more to come.

Angela and Ana work quickly to remove Fareeha’s restraints, and Ana gathers her so quickly to her chest that Angela has little chance to administer any medical care. Reinhardt surrounds them both in a big, bone-crushing bear hug and Fareeha keeps crying, either from the shocks delivered to her brain or the pain her ribs are feeling.

Finally, they’re forced to separate so Angela can check on Fareeha, still with waterfalls running down her cheeks, sobbing and moaning. Ana holds one hand, Reinhardt the other, while Angela checks her blood pressure and heart rate, noting that both are elevated. She gives Fareeha a cocktail of medications, adding a hearty dose of sedatives on top.

Anubis is trying to force her eyes open with small, gentle shocks, but Fareeha won’t be having any of it. The sedatives work their way to Anubis, slowing it and the shocks down, letting Fareeha close her eyes and rest her head against Ana, as the latter climbs up onto the bed beside her daughter, clinging on so tight that Fareeha worries she might fall apart from the strain of Ana’s nails digging into her arm.

Fareeha inhales, transported back to her childhood in Ana’s scent of lavender and laundry soap, as well as just a hint of dust, from the bunks’ shitty storage. She curls up, Anubis not rejecting her actions, but not appreciating them either. Ana whispers her praises, seemingly never running out. Reinhardt eventually leans against the bedframe, his fingers clumsily braiding Fareeha’s hair, finding comfort in the contact.

And Fareeha lies there, embracing rest and sleep and her broken-down little family coming together over a god program that’s unknowingly infected their daughter’s brain. She has her eyes closed, so all she hears is the clicking of those obnoxious spurs, but Fareeha knows.

Her mouth can’t help but curl into a sleepy, lackadaisical smile. Jesse punches her in the arm, and even though Fareeha’s muscle is still bruised, she keeps her smile anyways, until he sets his hat on her head, and she can grouchily scold him for bothering her while sleeping.


	4. Too Late.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fareeha considers waging war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENTS > KUDOS ! I don't feel motivated to write unless I get comments, so please leave some!
> 
> I had to reupload this because formatting, but! I don't like this chapter! I hope it's okay, I just wanted to get something posted before finallllllllllls...... UGH
> 
> Enjoy it anyways and thank you so much for reading!!

Anubis is furious. How dare Fareeha let her mother lie next to her, how dare she let Reinhardt braid her hair, how dare she let Jesse put his hat on her head? It’s a swirl of frustration, clouding her mind from any other thought but pure, unadulterated anger. There’s fire crawling in her veins, settling in her heart and lighting her up.

Fareeha feels her body shaking. She’s used to strength- either that of what she felt under Anubis, so steely and focused, never victim to the trap of emotions and feeling, or her true self, building herself up to meet her expectations created by herself and those around her. Anubis prepares another shock- she can feel it- and Fareeha embraces it. She’ll think as much as she wants to, it’s her brain, she’ll use it if she so pleases.

Talon’s programming hadn’t done much for her. Their nutrition packets only kept her alive, her cheeks used to be full and well-defined, but now, they’re devoid and depressed, making her look like a ghost. Her muscles had barely retained their original form, only thanks to the nanobots training them themselves, in addition to her five hours a day minimum training requirement given to her by her Talon trainers.

Maybe she’s better off with Overwatch, at least Angela’s been feeding her. Sure, she’s barely gotten out of bed, but her foot is ineffective, and she hobbles around painfully, not even getting any exercise while she’s at it.

As revenge for such audacious thoughts, Anubis delivers a shock, but it’s not one that makes her spasm and scream, it jolts her, and that’s it. Fareeha lies her head back against her pillow, her ribs throbbing from the force of her body moving so aggressively and so quickly. It isn’t like Anubis to go easy on her.

Even in her early days of the conditioning, Anubis would force her to go at the punching bag until her knuckles were bleeding and the bag itself was leaking onto the floor. Then, it would insist on more laps around the gym before another go at the weights.

It worries Fareeha that Anubis is getting slack. She hits the call button, if Anubis is plotting, she wants someone to be with when it all begins to go south.

For a while, it’s just Fareeha, paranoid and anxious. Every odd twinge in her body is Anubis gathering up strength to electrocute her completely. But it’s all nothing, it amounts to Fareeha panicking and her ribs aching afterwards. Finally, Angela comes to her aid, setting a plate of steaming soup in her lap.

“You looked pretty hungry when I left.” Angela said, smiling sympathetically as she placed a package of crackers on the tray. “Do you need any help?”

“No, I’ve got it.” Fareeha says.

Hesitantly, Fareeha takes a spoon from the tray. She dips it in the soup and swirls it a moment before bringing a spoonful to her lips. Anubis isn’t doing anything, so she feels secure enough to eat it, and then another bite, and then another.

Fareeha’s hardly a fourth of the way into her meal when it hits. It’s as though she’s been hit by lightning, her body spasms to an extreme degree, the tray goes flying and all Fareeha feels is searing, white hot pain all over. Angela is rushing to her as she screeches and flails, but Fareeha can’t register that she’s just _helping_.

She’s crying again now, trying to yank off her gown with the strength she has left. It’s soaked in the scorching soup, and she wants it off. Angela is now hitting the call button- for what kind of help, Fareeha doesn’t know, she’s the only medic around.

Angela gets the gown off and holds Fareeha still until the doors slide open. Fareeha doesn’t- can’t- recognize him, hair up in a ponytail, riding around on skates for some God unknown reasoning. They’re both yelling back and forth, but he brings an ice pack, and pours a water bottle out over her burns.

Fareeha knows that an AI cannot have emotions. She knows that to make her situation any more bearable, she’s humanized Anubis. But the nature of AIs be damned, Fareeha knows it’s smug right now. It’s humiliated her, burned her, shocked her, done everything it can to strip her of the title of “human being,” now degraded her down to “other.”

 

Other Fareeha remains. Ana visits her, and applies the medications that Angela has ordered be applied. Fareeha won’t make eye contact and won’t speak, but Ana is chatting away about how _lovely_ Torbjörn’s children were on their last visit to the base, and how Lena _finally_ figured out that recipe she’d been struggling with since before Fareeha had been taken. Later, Reinhardt takes Ana’s place, delivering a basket of croissants he’d picked up from a local market.

He sits at her bedside and reads to her- all old books that he’d read to her as a child. Most of them had been saved from his own youth, and Fareeha feels warm, knowing she’s been included in the timeline of the Wilhelms.

It’s the only solace she has right now. Anubis has driven her to a dark corner of her own mind, feeding her propaganda and lies. But to share in a moment of familial bonding and familiarity, Fareeha feels right, and Anubis can’t follow her here. 

Jesse comes to see her after she wakes up, having fallen asleep in the middle of a chapter. He doesn’t bring anything but company, which only makes Fareeha feel worse. Anubis can accept gifts, can ignore storytelling, can appreciate somebody treating the burn, but Anubis cannot stand conversation.

Hardly a minute and a half into the conversation, Anubis gives Fareeha a shock. She starts wailing, and her burn is now aggravated and so are her ribs, _again_. Jesse jumps up, and Fareeha wants to tell him, she wants to shout that Anubis is doing this, and that Anubis will kill her, but at just the thought, Anubis delivers another shock.

Worse than the first, this one sends her into an absolute frenzy, screaming and spasming as though she’s been shoved into a blender, which is precisely how she feels. Jesse pins her down, but it hurts worse, and Fareeha starts trying to kick him off. Her burn twists and Fareeha screeches louder than before.

The call button goes ignored for a good thirty seconds. Jesse finally slams it, and Angela is rushing in, having heard Fareeha’s screams.

Fareeha feels her mouth working around the words- _Anubis_. They fall flat, and stay on her tongue as Anubis delivers another punishment shock. Angela is shouting at Jesse while trying to do _anything_ for Fareeha. It’s all chaos, and even Anubis can’t sort it out for Fareeha, letting her suffer the screaming and shouting, amongst her spasming and panic.


	5. Screw Loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela solves the mystery, and Fareeha begins the process of losing her closest companion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENTS > KUDOS ! I don't feel motivated to write more unless I get comments, sooooo please comment!
> 
> TWO UPDATES ONE DAY I AM MAGIC MAN  
> Jk I just wrote half of this while I was in class and had a surge of inspo from it. This one just feeeeeels rushed to me, so I hope you guys like it. *shrug emoji*
> 
> BTW- I started a network for unappreciated Overwatch fic writers! You guys can check out the requirements to join here ( https://ovwficnet.tumblr.com/join ), and if you'd like to, toss an application over. The network will give you help with critiquing your fic before it goes out, writing itself, staying accurate and realistic, and getting motivated! Join if you want, or share if you don't!
> 
> Thank you all for reading and commenting!!

“I’m going to order an MRI for you.” Angela says, tightening the restraints on Fareeha’s wrist, “This has gotten completely out of hand.”

Fareeha feels herself flush with relief, and Anubis is practically short-circuiting. It’s all finally over, and Fareeha didn’t even have to betray Anubis. But there’s still a looming threat of Anubis going for one last shot of revenge, and that makes Fareeha squirm.

Angela leaves the room, off to go and make sure she can get everything cleared with Winston. They’re on a tight budget, and everything has to be approved. Fareeha’s a liability, and she can tell that nobody wants to waste more money than they have to on her. She’s a fixer-upper, falling into a sinkhole with every passing day.

It takes Anubis hardly thirty seconds to put it’s plan into action. Clearly, it’s trying something new, as for once under Anubis’ reign, Fareeha feels. She just feels sad, and it doesn’t seem to be for any apparent reason. Her lip wobbles and she feels her throat ache with the onset of incoming tears.

When Angela returns, the second the door opens, Fareeha starts bawling. She can’t stop herself, and as Angela nears, she devolves further and further. By the time Angela’s reached her bedside, Fareeha is practically a puddle of tears and distress. 

“Fareeha, are you nervous about the MRI? You shouldn’t be, really, I’m sure you’re perfectly fine. This is just to give everybody some peace of mind.” Angela assures her. She wraps a hand around Fareeha’s bicep, and the contact just results in wailing.

For the better part of the hour, Angela sits at her side, trying to calm her down, but Anubis won’t listen. It pushes Fareeha to her limits, and even further than that. Her voice is hoarse and her head is pounding. Angela sedates her, and promises that they’ll hold off the MRI until she’s awake.

The assurance gives Anubis the chance to let up, receding as Fareeha falls back asleep.

 

“How are you doing?” Angela asks, resting her hand over Fareeha’s, “Winston’s approved everything, so we can go ahead with the MRI today. So long as you’re feeling alright.”

The last part is tacked on, clearly out of fear that Fareeha- no, Anubis- will meltdown once again. Fareeha nods, Anubis hasn’t resurfaced recently, and she feels steady and stable enough to go through with it. She wonders if Anubis will make a grand reappearance on the MRI table, delivering her a final shock, and giving Angela the opportunity to examine the portrait of a dying mind.

Angela wheels Fareeha’s gurney out into the hallway. It’s empty, and Fareeha can see a little strip of tape at the other end of the hall, barring agents from entering. Fareeha feels guilty, knowing that she is now regarded as a ticking time bomb. Just the thought of everybody being kept away from her, Fareeha the _Thing_ , makes sadness rise up in her, authentic now, not of Anubis’ cruel manufacturing.

It's as Angela begins to remove her restraints that Fareeha feels it, an uncontrollable surge of anger. She hisses, kicks, and cries out while Angela backs away and calls for help. Fareeha works at breaking the restraints, but they’re strong enough to hold her, a malnourished and unfit husk of herself.

Jesse is forced to hold her down, with the aid of a pink haired girl who looks like she belongs on the cover of a fitness magazine. Angela leaves the room, and Jesse talks to Fareeha, his tone soothing, but the words lost in a swirl of Anubis’ rage. Fareeha’s breathing heavily, straining to try and break away.

“What’s going _on_?” Jesse hisses, coming through.

Fareeha wants to say, but Anubis has too much of a hold on her. What’s she supposed to say that Anubis can’t block out?

Instead, Fareeha screams in his face until he backs away, and Angela returns to sedate her once again.

 

They do the MRI while Fareeha’s out. Ana and Reinhardt have returned to her, while Angela’s off interpreting the results of it. Fareeha feels sick to her stomach, staring at Ana’s worried face. Reinhardt won’t even look up, he’s had his head bowed against the railing since Fareeha first woke up.

As the medication dissipates from her system, Fareeha feels less like her muscles are made of concrete, and feels confident enough to take Ana’s hand in her own, the restraints giving her just enough room to do so. It could easily be the last time she does it, Anubis has every means to destroy her once Angela figures it all out.

It takes half an hour before Angela comes back in, holding a manila file folder. She’s solved the puzzle, Fareeha can tell just by the look on her face.

“Fareeha, I can’t sugarcoat this.” Angela says, but Fareeha doesn’t really care all too much. She can’t be told anything she doesn’t know, so what’s the point in sugarcoating? “You’ve got something potentially very malicious embedded in your brain.”

Potentially. Fareeha feigns shock, just to make sure that they don’t assume she’s still loyal to Talon for withholding information regarding Anubis.

“I’ll have to preform a few more tests, we’ll get those underway now. But likely, you’ll need surgery, and we’ll really have to act fast.” Now, Angela’s voice is more grave than it has been, and her fingers tighten on the folder, “We have no idea what this device is. It could very well kill you.”

Fareeha starts laughing. It isn’t Anubis, but she isn’t entirely sure it’s herself either. She's cackling while Ana buries her face in her hands and Reinhardt openly begins to weep. Something is so fucked up about the situation, that Fareeha knows precisely what Anubis is doing with her, and yet she has to play dumb so Angela won’t send her into isolation for loyalty to the enemy.

“This is a perfectly normal reaction.” Angela tells Ana in a hushed voice, “Or it could very well be the hardware going after her. I’ll go get some equipment.”

She keeps laughing, knowing full well that she can tell Angela she’s alright for now, just finding something that’s far too serious far too hilarious. Instead, she lets Ana sob into Reinhardt’s chest, the two of them melting down while Fareeha is exploding from the inside out.


	6. Familial Bonding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fareeha is reclaimed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENTS > KUDOS ! I don't feel motivated to write new chapters unless I get comments, so please please comment! I read and try to reply to every single one!
> 
> I WROTE THIS ALL IN CLASS HA FUCK AN EDUCATION #FICORDIE
> 
> Aalso this updating schedule is ?? WILD I have never updated this much before in my LIFE

“She’s got a god program, it looks like it might’ve infected her whole brain.” Angela says, explaining the diagram she’s constructed to Ana and Reinhardt. “If I can remove it carefully and completely, then it seems that she’ll recover normally, and the infection should clear up within a few days under some carefully supervised nanobiology treatment.”

Ana holds onto Fareeha for a long time while the anesthetic sinks in. Reinhardt gives them distance until Ana has to let go to wipe her eyes, and he swoops in to give Fareeha the tightest hug she’s ever felt. Every pet name she’s ever heard is flowing through her ears, and she feels every ounce of love pour from him into her. Ana returns to them both, her tears soaking Fareeha’s hair, but she doesn’t care, it’s a labor of love she may very well never understand, but she’ll appreciate it anyways.

They stay together, Ana and Reinhardt bawling while Fareeha prepares a mental will and testament for when Anubis does her in. Finally, Fareeha goes under, and she’s thankful that her last image is of Reinhardt and Ana doting over her.

 

When Fareeha comes to again, she feels more disoriented than ever before. Angela is right in front of her, but when she reaches her hand out, so meekly and shakily, she’s a million miles away. The walls are swimming along the sides of the room and the bedsheets are like lead blankets.

“Don’t worry, this is just the anesthesia wearing off, combined with the effects of the god program. You’ll feel the side effects less over the course of the week, but they’ll still mess with your head.” Angela explains. It sounds like she’s underwater, and Fareeha giggles a little at that.

Jesse substitutes for Ana and Reinhardt, saying they’d stayed up all night to make sure the surgery went well. He doesn’t question her about her pre-MRI fit, and functions well as both company and aid when Angela’s unavailable. The walls make Fareeha feel seasick, and Jesse sits up with her on the bed, letting her bury her face in his chest until she feels better again. He consoles her when she starts crying because Anubis is _gone_ and she feels uncomfortable without it. Against Angela’s wishes, he sneaks her in junk food from the pantry, and when Fareeha’s hands fumble around the wrappers, he slices them open with his Swiss Army Knife just to look cool.

Angela has a steady stream of nanobots going in and out of Fareeha’s system. It feels good to have them back after Anubis was taken away from her. She hates to admit it, but Anubis was part of her, and she misses it, even though she shouldn’t.

Fareeha likes the nanobots. They’re soothing, more than any pain medication, and they lure her to sleep, positioned against Jesse’s chest.

 

She wakes up to a blaring siren. Fareeha jolts awake, reminded of too many nights in the army interrupted by the same sound.

On first instinct, she tries her luck at getting out of bed, but her legs have gone disused for too long. They give out and she crumples on the floor, her head hitting the tiles and giving her world a whole new shift. Gripping to the legs of the bed for any kind of stability, Fareeha cries out. She figures Angela’s made some medical promise to aid her patients in the event of an emergency, so she just holds on to the bed and tries to calm her down.

It takes a while before anyone reaches her. The door doesn’t whoosh open, and instead, it’s battered down.

Fareeha’s met by a familiar face, Sombra, looking more somber than usual. She crouches beside Fareeha, dragging her by the arm into a sitting position.

“Sorry.” She mumbles, when Fareeha groans.

Sombra sets the tip of a needle against the Fareeha’s vein. For a few moments, she hesitates, before finally plunging it in and pushing down on the plunger of a syringe. It’s silent between them, Fareeha’s body growing heavier by the second.

“I’m sorry.” Sombra says again, pulling Fareeha from the floor as far as she can, before calling towards the door, “Hey! Extraction of the target!”

 

Fareeha remembers this room. It’s her old cell at the Talon headquarters, kept exactly the same. She’s dressed in Talon’s uniform, though there’s nothing indicating new hardware in her body. Anubis is out, it seems, for good. There’s nothing to take it’s place, and she lies on the cot, still hard and cold, wondering if there’s something more to come.

And it seems there is. The door opens, and Sombra comes in. It’s a moment of deja vu that Fareeha doesn’t appreciate. 

Before Sombra can get a word out, Fareeha rises from her cot, shaking with anger. “What did you _do_?”

“I’m sorry,” Sombra responds, “they made me put a tracking code in Anubis’ programming. The second it got removed, it let them all know your exact coordinates. I’m sorry, I really didn’t want to do it. But they threatened me.”

Fareeha struggles to feel mad. If she was in Sombra’s position, easily she would’ve complied, rather than dealing with any of the superiors. They’re all nasty little bureaucrats, aside from Widowmaker, but it’s a more difficult road to get to her desk. But still, Fareeha’s boiling with anger that Talon’s seized her from her family, what’s essentially been her home since Ana first joined Overwatch.

“I have to give you this implant. Don’t worry, it’s lighter than Anubis. This is the Jackal model.” Sombra holds up a surgical, sterile-looking instrument, “Give me your palm. Insertion barely hurts, alright? It’s a lighter model.”

The words ‘lighter model’ don’t reassure Fareeha to any degree. The residue of Anubis, however, is comforted greatly and forces her to thrust her hand out gladly.

 

Jackal only functions when activated. Fareeha wanders the headquarters of Talon nervously, her muscles tensed under the threat of Jackal’s awakening. She has a meeting with Widowmaker over mission assignments, and speaks briefly with a droopy-faced agent over whether or not she needs to refile all her paperwork.

Three days into her new contract with Talon, Fareeha’s called to go have a meeting with Reaper. She distinctly remembers hating these meetings with every fiber of her being, the hallway leading to his poorly-lit office way too cold for any human being to stand.

Fareeha shuffles down the hall, her fists clenched at her side. Her shoulders shudder, and Fareeha questions if it’s the chill or the anticipation of speaking with _him_.

No matter how much the organic part of Fareeha hates Talon and Reaper and all the rest of them, she has to treat it like walking into a meeting with a Helix superior. It’s to be treated as a business, not the elaborate criminal network it is. So she knocks at the door with the rigid seriousness of an employee preparing to ask for a raise, and walks in, commenting on the new light fixtures as she does.

“What do you want?” He asks, standing, not sitting like he does for every meeting. Fareeha’s body tenses in preparation for any form of an attack.

“You called me in here. So, shouldn’t I be asking you?”

“That’s why I asked for a meeting. I want to know what you want.”

Fareeha wants a lot of things, but she says the first one that comes to mind, “I want to go back to my family.”

“Why go back?”

It catches Fareeha off-guard. She stands there, frozen, staring at Reaper as though he’s just told her the worlds biggest secrets. “I don’t think I understand what you mean.”

Reaper raises a hand to his face mask, disengaging a few hinges before pulling it up. Black mist billows from beneath it, and Fareeha uses her Talon-issued turtleneck to keep from inhaling it. She stands there, waiting for the smoke to clear, and when it does, she thinks she would’ve rather ran under the cover provided.

After so many years, she’s met with _him_ again. Gabriel Reyes, the man who raised her as his niece, who carried her around on his shoulders, who made her Halloween costumes every year, he’s back, and he’s staring at her. He’s supposed to be dead, but he’s here, and Fareeha can’t think of a single thing to say.

“Why do you need to go back?” He asks, extending a hand to her, “You’ve got family right here, Fareeha. Family you haven’t seen in such a long, long time.”

Fareeha finds her hand going into his, clinging on tightly and reveling in hearing the syllables of her name pronounced by such a familiar tongue. She holds on, and slowly finds herself moving closer, being wrapped in an embrace colder than she’s felt before, but still so warm beneath the surface. Her eyes close, and she doesn’t care that she’s now susceptible in the event of a trap.

She clings onto Gabriel, and lets herself believe that Talon will give her a family.


	7. Blast to the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of unfortunate moral dilemmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENTS > KUDOS ! I feel less motivated to write when I don't see any comments, so please please please comment so I can keep doing two updates in a day!
> 
> Am I burning myself out by posting two updates within less than 15 hours? Probably. Am I going to keep doing it? Hell yes. OKAY PLEASE READ PLEASE LIKE IT PLEASE COMMENT
> 
> THANK THANK THANK YOU GUYS FOR BEING SO GREAT <3 <3 LOVE YOU ALL

On her first mission back as a Talon agent, Fareeha understands why this program is named Jackal. She’s less military. Now, she’s a scavenger, picking off the weak and wounded. Like with her old visor, Jackal is turned on and Fareeha is whisked into a world unlike her own. Her mind no longer sees an elderly man fleeing for his life, it sees an enemy rushing to the artillery. She fires without hesitation, and only when she touches back down does she see the true extent of her destruction.

She starts shouting at Sombra back in the transport, demanding to have Jackal removed at once. She’s a soldier, not a low-life who picks off those who cannot defend themselves.

But nobody can do it, only the highest levels of authority can authorize an equipment removal, and that means going through Gabriel.

Fareeha’s tired of speaking with him. He corners her at every chance, offering her perks that she full well knows she shouldn’t have. But still, Fareeha takes it. She has better quarters now, a nicer bed, more sheets and pillows, her _own_ bathroom, higher quality clothing. Gabriel even presents her with a new jacket, emblazoned with Talon’s emblem. She always finds an excuse not to wear it, but prances around in it in her room. Gabriel would never let Fareeha wear clothing he hadn’t designed and manufactured himself, and she sees the love in the jacket, each stitch hand done.

She knows it means that he’s been waiting for her, but she prefers to believe that it means he loved her so much, he knew she would come back to him, because family always reunites, and they always come together. That’s what Gabriel tells her, guiding a brand new rocket launcher into her arms.

 

Nutrition packets lose their taste, and Fareeha grows restless, patrolling the grey and black hallways of Talon HQ. She tries to convince Widowmaker to sign transportation out for her, so she can go and get food at a nearby café, but Widowmaker doesn’t trust her enough. Even when Sombra offers to escort her, Widowmaker rolls her eyes and walks away.

“We can just ask Reaper. He favors you anyways, so it’s not like he’ll say _no_.” Sombra says, shrugging and turning on her heel.

Fareeha grips her arm, yanking Sombra back. “Hey! That’s not true.”

“Then how come I’ve been working here for six years and you’ve got a better bunk than me after six days.”

 

It’s a fair point, but it doesn’t _feel_ fair. The thought of being on any end of special treatment makes Fareeha feel just upset. She hates her curtains- not blinds like every other low-level agent has. And now that she thinks about it, she hates the area rug, covering the hardwood flooring that no one but the superiors have. Fareeha is a _grunt_ , she’s not supposed to have any of this, but she does.

Because Gabriel is her family, she reminds herself, and he’s looking out for her. What uncle wants his niece to sleep on a gross, lumpy mattress? Fareeha paces her room, kicking her bed frame as she passes it. It’s so nice, specially crafted from a carpenter in a little village nearby, that’s what Gabriel told her.

Fareeha roots through her drawers, primarily handmade garments, all marked with Talon insignia, as if she’ll forget her place in the world. How could she ever have thought that she belonged anywhere else? Talon makes her happy, doesn’t it?

She sets some clothes out, grabs a Talon-issued duffel bag from her closet, and pauses in front of her spread. Then, she takes up the clothes and tosses them all back into her dresser. It’s futile to run away, they’ll find her anyway they can. And why would she want to run? Talon’s going to take care of her, Gabriel’s made that plenty clear.

The Talon logo is hideous, it’s all so gloomy here, and Fareeha doesn’t know if she can’t stand it- blue is her favorite color after all, and the only time she gets to see it is when she rockets to the sky in combat. But then the blue is marred by the red of casualties and Fareeha doesn’t love it so much anymore. 

Maybe a blue sweater would be a better compromise.

An urge to pack her bag and run resurfaces again, but there’s no way to leave. The doors are all guarded, and she’d need authorization to leave in a vehicle. Leaving is a stupid idea anyways, Fareeha figures, and she sits herself down on the bed.

In Talon’s headquarters, there’s not much to do. Reading is unproductive, drawing is unproductive, listening to music is too loud- it’s all banned. So, Fareeha sits, toys with the insertion scar on her hand, and stares at the wall when the scar becomes red. Talon knows best, and Fareeha knows that this solitude will make her a better soldier.

But she’ll be damned if she doesn’t want to play made-up-rules chess with Lena or bake with Mei. She wants to run down to the shooting range and play cowboy with Jesse, being scolded by Angela for the improper use of firearms.

Rather, Fareeha sits and stares at the wall, focusing on a little tiny dent that she made in one of her moments of frustration. She’d been upset about Gabriel insisting she have meals hand-delivered, and punched the wall in her fury.

Fareeha knew Gabriel was in the right. All he wanted to do was protect her from anybody who might try and poison her food, or attack her at the table, right? She knows that he wants what’s best for her, and that’s why he has her here.

 

“Rejoin the western squad. I’ll cover you.” Fareeha barks into her comm, shifting her position in the sky to provide aerial defense for her team. She raises her launcher to her shoulder, rolling her muscles as she prepares for the kickback.

This one is more heavy duty, it’s got power where it needs it, and the bruises speckling her shoulder are simply marks of it’s achievements. A rocket flies out into the sea of chaos, and it lands with a satisfying cacophony of sound, perfectly suited to the situation.

“Fareeha, close range. There’s an agent down near to your position.” Widowmaker tells her, “I couldn’t reach them, even if I tried.”

“Affirmative.”

Fareeha flips her visor down, and Jackal takes over. It’ll sniff out any wounded fighter within a matter of seconds, and Fareeha is thankful she doesn’t have to hunt a blood trial herself. Jackal leads her to a familiar lump of red, crouched behind a building. She hovers for a moment, her launcher staying at her side in hesitation as her soon-to-be victim looks up.

Jesse stares at her, and Fareeha stares back, though from this distance, neither of them can make eye contact, something they’re both grateful for. He doesn’t crawl away, he doesn’t try to escape, he just stares. Unarmed and maimed, he’s willing to trust her judgement- _Jackal’s_ judgement.

“Widowmaker.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve got eyes on the target.”

“Then fire. Don’t wait around, you’ll lose it.”

Widowmaker’s right, but Fareeha wants to give Jesse at least a _chance_ to run. That way she can justify it when her superiors demand to know why she didn’t fire.

Jackal has different plans, and her finger flies to the trigger. She won’t press down yet, her eyes meeting Jesse’s with a wobbly lip. 

Fareeha doesn’t want to fire. She wants to go home and she wants to drink expensive, foreign hot chocolate with her mother. And then, when she’s done, she’ll go and play cowboy with Jesse until Angela makes them both go inside and listen to one of Reinhardt’s war stories. She wants to flex just for Aleksandra in the gym, wink at her in the hallways, and pretend to be drunker than she is to excuse her poor flirting skills. Fareeha wants to be scolded by Torbjörn for wrecking her Raptora being a hero, she wants to have sleepovers with Hana, and drink tea with Lena.

But Jackal has another idea. Jackal tightens the muscles in her finger, and she shuts her eyes as the rocket leaves the barrel.


	8. I Could Never Rescue You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENTS > KUDOS ! I don't feel motivated to write unless you leave some for me, so please do! And if you'd like to beta read for me, LMK!
> 
> I wrote a LONG rant which I deleted because it was petty, but I wanna post this comment ( https://imgur.com/a/984xL ) to let everybody know that I'm ok with critique, but not with people being nasty with me and telling me my writing quality is taking a dive. Rolling my eyes into fucking oblivion. They've got nothing posted either, so. Real power move, being the person who doesn't publish a thing, but has lots to say about those who work their asses off to put out updates.
> 
> This chapter is short, but I like it! This is about to lead into some fun biz fun stuff fun times
> 
> Anyways! Love everybody who comments on this fic and reads it <3

Jackal guides her out of the active fighting, and towards a group of stragglers going for aid. She lines up a rocket, fires, and moves on. It continues like that, picking off the weak and providing cover for the strong. Finally, Widowmaker calls her to the edge of the settlement they’re fighting in, and orders her on the transport. 

The second Jackal disengages, Fareeha becomes overwhelmed. Guilt from what she’s done, not just to Jesse, is culminating inside of her and she feels unsteady on her feet. She’s shivering, uncertain if she really wants Jackal gone. Stony unfeeling is much better than her current state, torn up and ready to breakdown.

She buries her head in her knees, trying to block out everything weighing in her mind. It’s mostly ineffective, as everything manages to crawl back into her brain and stew and compost there.

Every molehill of a thought recycles itself into a mountainous problem standing before her, reminding Fareeha of what she’s done. Her stomach is churning and she feels the guilt physically eating her. She wants to be back with her mother, and with Reinhardt, and Jesse. She wants Jesse to call her birdbrain again and tease her for caring so much about how well-steeped her tea is, and she wants Jesse to demand to know what in the hell the difference between a falcon and an eagle is.

But Fareeha wants a lot of things, Talon wants a lot of things, and Jackal wants one thing.

 

No happy medium is reached in Fareeha’s life. She’s forced to fire at Tracer as she zips about the battlefield, aim her launcher at her mother and ambush Angela. Gabriel praises her relentlessly, letting her know how absolutely brave she is for going against an organization that’s corrupted her and given her a supposed complex. Still, Fareeha finds herself waking up screeching most nights, imagining her mother’s blackened body lying at her feet.

Fareeha stops sleeping for more than a few hours. Sombra is the first to notice the change, and suspects that Jackal’s been enforcing an unfair sleep schedule. After a checkup, it’s determined that it simply isn’t the case, and Fareeha’s sent off to speak with Talon’s head psychologist, an old man who looks like a bloodhound. 

It’s an unenjoyable meeting for the most part. He stares at her, speaks, and his jowls flap, making Fareeha press her lips tight together as she tries not to giggle like a child. Ana had always scolded her for laughing at reporters who looked odd. Fareeha had never payed much mind to the lectures.

“It might be wise to upgrade you to a system that has more control.” He advises, leaning back in his chair.

“What do you mean?"

“You came off of Anubis, correct? The change must be difficult for you. Especially with the stress of such a demanding job. I’ll order Sombra to find some new hardware for you. Maybe just an update to Jackal’s system will do you.”

Pursing her lips, Fareeha nods. If she has a say, she’d rather have Jackal removed altogether, but she doesn’t. So, she goes down to Sombra’s little makeshift lab, positioned in a cranny on the other end of the base.

“He said you should get Jackal updated?” Sombra asks, beckoning for Fareeha to come from the doorway.

Shrugging, Fareeha nods. “It’s apparently not a good adjustment from Anubis.”

“… I guess.” Sombra’s eyebrows go up, and she cringes just slightly. “Come sit down, I’ll take it out and get started on whatever ‘updates’ he wants.”

 

Jackal’s new form is much more strict. Fareeha’s diet is taken down from whatever she pleases to an apple for breakfast, a pear for lunch, and the indulgence of two apples for dinner. She’s given nanobots by the on-call medic, who comments that Fareeha’s lost much of her muscle mass. Jackal takes this into consideration, and sends her to the gym until she ends up collapsing into Widowmaker’s arms.

Everything is new to her, she feels the world from a perspective she’s never had before. It’s far from Anubis’ iron hold, but it’s not the freedom she’s grown so used to. This is Jackal, lenient and yet strict, a river but a waterfall. The contrast between Fareeha’s minimal downtime and when Jackal is working her to the bone is brutal and it makes her feel like every part of her body is raw and burning from the strain.

Walking the path Jackal’s set for her drains her, but Gabriel assures her that she’ll be back to normal once she gets used to it. He tells her that she won’t feel so empty and tired, that all she has to do is give it time.

So she does. Fareeha gives it a week, and by the end of that week, she’s barely willing to get out of bed. Her cheeks are hollow and her skin is pale.

“You should rest.” Gabriel tells her, as she struggles with putting on her socks. Lately, all she feels is two things- frigid and exhausted.

Fareeha nods, succumbing to the “lazy” path for the first time in her life. Gabriel sits by her side, rigid, and yet so sympathetic to her plight. He’s smiling, reassuring her and encouraging her to sleep.

Looking at him makes the tension in her shoulders dissipate, her body falls into a feeling of calm and peace, something she hasn’t known for weeks now. Gabriel holds her hand, and Fareeha smiles back at up at him, sighing deeply before letting herself fully go.

 

She sleeps for far too long this time, Fareeha knows that. When she wakes up, she feels heavy, but not tired. Her body is waking up with her, she figures, and she pays no mind when it takes extra effort to roll her head to the side.

After craning her neck, Fareeha realizes she isn’t in her room. She’s in the medical office, lying on a cot. It takes a moment for her to process it all together, and she figures that maybe Gabriel had taken her here to help her recover from malnutrition. An apple a day diet wasn’t doing her body very well.

Fareeha’s forehead itches. She raises a hand, and notices silver, rather than the warm brown she’s known her whole life. Examining it for a moment, Fareeha chalks it up to apple-induced delusion.

Then, she notices a seam. The silver, a few centimeters above her skin, attaches at her elbow, sleek and smooth, the Talon logo printed at her joint. She rotates her arm several times, trying to figure out the origin of the appliance. When Fareeha clenches her fingers, the silver ones go with it.

Her other arm is the same, and she moves both in tandem, operating in what feels like a science fiction horror movie. The doors open slowly, and in walks Sombra, flanked by Gabriel and the droopy old psychologist.

“Our mechaqueen has awoken.”


	9. Center

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fareeha makes a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENTS > KUDOS ! i feel less motivated to write when there's no comments, so please leave someone!
> 
> personal update time because i feel bad that i got off track with updates. i kinda hit rock bottom mentally : / which is disappointing, esp with finals coming up. but i have 2 new fics (a mixtape fic and a youtuber au fic) to upload soon, and then i have two others for after this fic wraps up (an hs au and a ghost au)
> 
> im kind of ... not very healthy rn? i have to go see a doctor very soon, but i'm sure they're just going to tell me the same thing and make me spend more $$ on more visits until they actually appropriately diagnose me. 
> 
> btw katherine isn't gonna be throw away!!! also im sorry this is so short : (

Fareeha doesn’t want to work with the doctors. They encourage her to try and acclimate to her new limbs, invite her to do dexterity tests and go on hobbles around the track, but she wants to sit in bed and take advantage of the new perks Gabriel has given her- a set of magazines. All of them are slightly tattered, marked with dates from years ago, but she reads them anyways.

Sombra comes to visit her sometimes, and serves as a mouthpiece for the doctors. It’s always worse to hear it from her, the person she _knows_ created the prosthetics. But Sombra still tells her to go and take a walk. She offers to help her stay upright, and says that afterwards, she can sneak her in some teacakes.

The teacakes are never enticing enough, and Fareeha lets her muscles go. Hard lines become replaced by curves, and Fareeha finds herself mourning nothing. Jackal orders her out of bed several times, but she clings to the railings until the program gives up. Gabriel can’t even get her to stop her protest.

“Go find somebody else’s life to ruin.” Fareeha grumbles, flipping the worn pages of a magazine she’s read enough times to memorize the words. “I’m staying here.”

He yells at her, and a huge fight erupts in the medbay. Fareeha’s monitors are screaming out of control, and Gabriel is just screaming. Neither of them will back down, and even when the nurse tries to get Fareeha to settle down, so her heart rate will go back to the peaceful little rolling hills, rather than the series of Everests it’s creating now.

“Either you start working, or I’m bringing Anubis back.” He orders Fareeha, before turning on his heel and leaving the room.

Fareeha’s heart rate spikes again, and the nurse tries her best to soothe her. Whispering calmly, she asks if Fareeha wants books, tea, a sedative.

“I want to go take a walk.”

 

She’s like a baby giraffe, clumsy and weak. The nurse holds onto her tightly, but it makes no difference to Fareeha. Remaining a toddler, she progresses down the hallway until her muscles are sore and she wants to rest again. But the nurse isn’t having any of it, and she encourages Fareeha to ‘just go around the corner’, which turns into ‘just go down the hall’, becoming ‘just to the gym doors.’

The nurse has to practically carry her onto one of the benches, she’s so tired from the walk. “It’s a lot to start with, but you did very well.” She coos, forcing Fareeha to sit rather than slump over.

Fareeha wonders how Talon manages to find such a blessing of a woman, so sweet and kind, her features far too aged for the lightness of her voice. She’s young, blond, but greying at the roots. Her nose is up-turned, and she has a roundness to her cheeks that’s all too familiar, but Fareeha lets her curiosity subside into exhaustion.

“How about a walk back to your room?” She suggests, tugging gently at Fareeha’s arm.

“No.” Fareeha grumbles in response, sinking low on the bench. There’s a comfortable silence for a few moments, before Fareeha turns her head, “Where are you from?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“How do you not know?”

“I’ve been with Talon since I was young.”

“What?”

Laughing a little, the nurse shakes her head, “You don’t know? There’s a nursery just a floor down. Talon picks up orphans from poor situations, and raises them up under good leadership.”

Fareeha snorts at that, and the nurse chuckles a little too.

“What’s your name?”

“Katherine.”

“Last name?”

“Moser.”

“Nice.”

“Thank you, Fareeha Amari.”

 

Katherine is Fareeha’s favorite nurse, visiting her at all hours of the day with gossip from the missions. She makes hot chocolate at night, when Fareeha wakes up crying, and disables Jackal remotely when it shows up to ruin their fun. It makes life in the Talon medbay more pleasurable, even with Gabriel and Sombra’s constant check ups.

On better days, Katherine leads Fareeha around the base, catching her when her legs fail, or she’s too weak to go on. When her energy is depleted, they sit on the floor together, shrugging off the stares of passerby, discussing what’s good on the new soap operas. Gabriel had given Fareeha a TV in the medbay, to keep her occupied, and Katherine often joins her for weekly reruns.

There’s some days on which even Katherine can’t make Fareeha feel good. Her head thuds and she snaps at everybody she can. Gabriel reprimands her for being rude, but she just flips him off and covers her head with the pillow again.

Fareeha cycles through moods several times a day, Jackal throwing her whole system off balance. She suffers through Jackal’s apathy and disrespect, then is greeted with the hangover of it all, miserable and anxious over the repercussions of it’s actions. Her joy plummets to overwhelming depression when Katherine visits, then leaves. Anger floods her when Sombra walks in the door, and it only spikes when Gabriel comes through, though a warm and loving feeling invades her chest when he holds her hand.

“Fareeha, you should get some mood stabilizers or _something_. This isn’t healthy for you.” Katherine tells her, as Fareeha comes up from a particularly cry session, over whether or not her mother had forgotten her. 

Hesitating, Fareeha bites her lip. She enjoys the mood swings, sometimes. They remind her that she’s human and whole, and not just Jackal embedded in her palm. Katherine does the same, but it’s not what the mood swings do for her. They don’t reassure her that falling is not just humbling, but effective in her recovery, but they make her feel the fall like Jackal doesn’t let her feel.

“I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.” Fareeha says.


End file.
